Tag Archives: Brussels

Sunday 6th March 2011 – Today was exciting.

Manure Knighted were well and truly stuffed by the Bin Dippers this afternoon. Seeing them have a good stuffing is something that always cheers me up and I always feel better afterwards. Even if it is Sunday and I’ve had a decent sleep for a change.

And so a leisurely morning listening to Terry cheering on the Barmy Army also made quite a change.

Later on Liz and I went round to Marianne’s and ended up going for a walk in the park. We took the ferry over to the island (cost €1:00 – no wonder the Flemish are good swimmers) where I had the coldest cup of coffee I have ever had in a restaurant while Marianne and Liz had the poorest excuse for a cappuccino that I have ever seen.

And all for €8:50 as well, plus the fare on the ferry to cross over to the island. It’s not been a very good afternoon from that point of view.

Marianne came back to the apartment where Liz cooked another one of her specialities – spicy Shepherd’s Pie (made with real shepherds, so I am assured) and then I ran Marianne home again.

In other news, in writing up my epic voyage around Canada I am just about to have my first glimpse of the sea and of Newfoundland. It’s getting to the climax and the tension is unbearable. I need to make quicker progress as the suspense is killing me. I must know what happens next.

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Saturday 5th March 2011 – We went for a Mexican this evening

But before that, we went to Chi-Chi’s for some food. It was Terry’s idea – as soon as I mentioned going out, he volunteered the Mexican restaurant. And as soon as we got there it was “oooh look, there’s deep-fried ice cream on the menu this evening”. So now we know.

We all had a good meal and the dining was accompanied by Manuel Labour and his mate on the guitars. It makes quite a nice change to have a musical evening.

And Terry and Liz deserved their meal. Terry has finished tiling both balconies and there is only the grouting to do on there, as well as a small amount of cementing. Liz finished emulsioning the walls and has started on the woodwork. I scrubbed the floor in the cupboard again and painted the woodwork in there too. We’ve been working hard just now so it’s nice to go out and relax.

And I’m off to bed in a minute. I had a bad night last night and I’m thoroughly tired out. I’m getting old and I can’t last the pace.

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Friday 4th March 2011 – We had a lovely lunch too.

There’s more than enough food in an Indian meal, even for a gannet like me, and so we had a tapas-kind of affair with a table groaning under the weight of Indian leftovers and so on. Absolutely gorgeous.

But the highlight of the day was Terry’s new toy. It really is superb and cut the terrace tiles with no effort at all. Terry also had a play with it and found that he could even cut strips of tile just 5mm wide. That is impressive. And if you work out how much you lose on broken tiles and how much you lose because you can’t cut slivers of tile, then this machine will pay for itself in a matter of months in the hands of a regular tile fitter, simply on the grounds of reduced wastage.

So while Terry was tiling the balcony (with an occasional hand from youts truly) Liz carried on wallpapering the living room and I got stuck into the cupboard under the stairs. The aforementioned living room is now wallpapered and has had the first coat of paint, and the cupboard has been repainted and the filthy paint-stained floor has been scrubbed.

The two most time-consuming parts of the work are the living room and the terraces and they should be finished early next week. All that then remains is to tidy up and touch up the rest.

MInd you, I’ve said things like this before.

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Thursday 3rd March 2011 – I’ve just had a gorgeous tea ;-)

A vegetable massala with rice and garlic naam. Terry had a chickem korma and liz had a vegetable biryani. Poppadoms, other naams, all kinds of stuff as well. A real Indian banquet from the takeaway in … errr … Folkestone. No point in letting a flying (or tunneling, even) visit to the UK go to waste.

So a nice early start to the Eurotunnel depot, blagging my way onto an earlier shuttle and I was in the Sainsbury’s with a plate of beans and chips before 09:00 UK time.

As soon as Screwfix opened, I was there. Only half of the mastic we needed, one of the saws wasn’t in stock, most of everything else was there, but “the tile saw is only available on 7-day order. Come back next week”

And so a frantic call to Terry back in Belgium and he tracked down an even more powerful tile cutter for just £20 more – in Crawley! So seeing as I was halfway there, what’s another 80 miles between friends?

It took three of us (me and the two guys in the shop) to load this machine into Caliburn.

Once I’d organised that, I went to the seaside for lunch. A nice bag of chips (and malt vinegar) on the seafront at Hastings overlooking the ruins of the pier.

After lunch, back to Ashford and the Tesco’s there for the pile of food shopping (you didn’t REALLY think that I had just come all this way for an industrial tile cutter and nothing else, did you?) and then to the Sainsbury’s at Folkestone again for whatever I couldn’t get at Tesco.

Final job was the Indian takeaway and it’s a good job that the staff arrived early, otherwise I would have been pushing it to catch my train back. They cooked while I babysat their kids (the things I have to do to keep my staff happy) and then a thrash through the traffic onto the train, and a thrash back home.

708 kilometres, a mere trifle you might think. It’s about the same distance as going back home again. But it was a lovely day out though, and the meal put the icing on the cake as it were.

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Wednesday 2nd March 2011 – I’m off to bed in a minute

And it’s only 20:31 too!

I’ve had a hectic few days, as I said yesterday, and it’s going to be continuing tomorrow too.

I managed about 5 hours or so at the side of the road and after yet another uneventful drive I ended up being back here in time for lunch.

This afternoon we carried on working but we have hit a logistics issue. Our little tile cutter isn’t good enough to cut the tiles for the terraces. We need a professional one and to hire one for three days, it’s €250!!! Exactly the same machine is on offer at Screwfix for £199.99 and the Eurotunnel have day trips for €90 just at the moment.

Hence yours truly is up at 07:00 tomorrow and he’s booked on the 10:45 crossing to Folkestone, where there is a Screwfix depot.

I’m not half getting about these days. Rather like the sailor who joined the navy to see the world. Except that in my case, I joined the navy to let the world see me.

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Tuesday 1st March 2011 – AND NOW I’M NOT!

I’m back on the road again heading to Brussels. I’ve had a hectic few days just recently and it isn’t going to stop either any time soon.

This morning I woke up in the cold to a typical Combraille-type hanging cloud (isn’t it good to be home?) and after a somewhat late start I emptied Caliburn of everything that I had taken down to the farm. It’s all stacked in the barn now and I’ll tidy it up in due course. Following a doze for an hour or so, I went to this CREFAD meeting at St Gervais where I was one of the guest speakers.

I met a new English couple there and their daughter. They haven’t long been in the Auverne, having moved from near Haltwhistle. What attracted them to the area was that it looked “just like home” and I can echo that. “I wanted a stone house” said the wife. “I’m a true border reiver and stone doesn’t burn”.

That of course brought back memories of my former connections with the border and Archie Fisher’s album Windward Away – “every time I think of you I see a border reiver”. That of course leads on to the story of the 9 year-old boy who knew how to make a marriage work – “you tell your wife that she is beautiful, even if she looks like a truck”. And of course from there we have “every time I think of you I see a Leyland Reiver”.

Once the meeting was over, I shot off straight back to Brussels. I didn’t make it all the way back (which is only to be expected seeing as how late it was when I left). I made it as far as St Florentin which is between Auxerre and Troyes, where I crashed out in the big lay-by there at the side of the road.

Monday 28th February 2011 – I’m back at home ;-)

Well, for less than 24 hours as it happens. I’m speaking at this doodah thingy tomorrow evening at 20:30.

And so this morning I loaded up Caliburn with all of the wood and shelving that I’ve had lying around in the garages for years. It’s all quite good stuff and suitable for various products. Also in Caliburn is a pile of vegetable oil for running the diesel Escort on, some leftover construction material (some of which needs to go back as it happens), a few bits and pieces, and my motorbike.

I bet you didn’t know that I have a motorbike. Most people would say that it isn’t very exciting but it’s certainly special. It’s a CZ125 of early 1980s vintage – the first of the “post-angular” series – but was one of six unassembled ones in crates that was “overlooked” in a CZ dealership that closed down. When the premises were cleared in 2000, they were discovered, built up and sold on eBay. I paid £395 for it. It’s done just about 150 miles since I’ve had it – the journey from Dover to Brussels and then a lap around the town.

Back in the flat we’ve hit a major problem. There’s water infiltration in the wall next to the front balcony and when we took off the radiator, half the plaster fell off as well. So we chiselled off the rest and we plan to plasterboard it with the hydrofuge stuff, having first sealed in the balcony and weatherproofed the walls.

And so I set off down here at 15:30, and was in my room at 00:15 and that includes stopping for tea in Auxerre. Caliburn seems to be in good form right now after his stay at the garage, although he’s more thirsty than before.

Tomorrow I’ll unload him, go to this meeting, and then head back to Brussels to see how the troops are doing. It’s over 5 weeks since we went there and everyone is quite fed up of the place but soon we will be back home permanently. And I shan’t be sorry.

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Sunday 27th February 2011 – Sunday today.

And I woke up at the comparatively early time of … errrr … 10:30. Definitely feeling the pressure, I am. I shall be glad when all of this is finished.

And so apart from helping Terry for 10 minutes with some wiring I’ve done nothing else of note.

I say nothing else but that’s not really true. One of the things that I have been doing while I’ve been in Belgium is to write up the story of my stay in Canada. There won’t be enough time for that and so I’ve restricted myself to the Trans-Labrador Highway. Over the past 5 weeks I’ve been doing this and at the moment I’m just pulling into Mary’s Harbour on the Labrador coast. Here I’ll be staying for my final night in Labrador prior to taking the ferry from Blanc Sablon over to Newfoundland.

There are lots more interesting things to encounter on the journey and I’m quite looking forward to finishing it and seeing it all in glorious technicolour. But it won’t be for a while though. Tomorrow night I’m off on my marathon drive back home.

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Saturday 26th February 2011 – I haven’t been here long today.

This morning I went to the dechetterie and threw another huge pile of stuff away. Much of it wasn’t really worth anything at all but there was some stuff that was rather significant in my past and it was surprisingly difficult to hurl it into the waiting jaws of a huge digger that was about to carry it off into the incinerator.

While I was there Terry rang me and asked me to pick up a three-phase circuit breaker. And I was halfway to the tile shop before I realised that I was supposed to be going to the electrician’s. Anyway, to cut a long story short … “thank you” – ed … they didn’t have one in and needed to order it. Could I come back this afternoon?

So after lunch and a little desultory sanding down of woodwork and polyfilla in the second half of the living room, I went out to pick up the circuit breaker. Terry rang again and asked me to pick up three packets of tiling cement and so this time I did indeed go to the tile shop where I had a lengthy chat with the owner while the minions searched for the cement.

On the way back the canal bridge was all closed off and there were loads of police cars about – whether someone had thrown themselves in the canal I don’t really know but the circulation was difficult to say the least and it was about 18:30 when I returned home.

It’s Saturday night of course and so once the rugby had finished we hit the streets. Up to Schuman where we found a decent Italian restaurant. My penne al arrabiata was the best I had ever eaten and everyone else thoroughly enjoyed their meal. A pint in the James Joyce rounded off the evening perfectly and then we came back home – at about 11:15.

What an enjoyable day!

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Friday 25th February 2011 – It’s been another day …

where we have made huge strides. We’ve also done a fair bit of work too.

This morning while Liz put the second coat of paint on the first half of the living room, Terry and I concreted the terrace outside the front and the side of the apartment. We cracked on at it at quite a pace, fixing some simple shuttering and then me mixing while Terry spread and tamped. It was all done by lunchtime and for an encore I filled in the spaces on the back terrace where the shuttering had been.

After lunch, while Liz and Terry sorted out what needed moving from up here, I went downstairs into the garage and began getting the stuff ready to throw away. Terry came down to help me later on and now Caliburn is chock-full to the roof of rubbish for the tip. I really can’t imagine just what I was doing with half of the stuff in there – I really can’t.

Anyway, by tomorrow lunchtime it will all be history.

Once it’s all away I can load up Caliburn with more stuff to move to the Auvergne. There’s a meeting of CREFAD – the organisation in the Auvergne that helps people set up small businesses – on Tuesday evening. They are discussing self-employment and how to register for this new minimalist self-employment scheme, and I have been invited to speak at it. Shameless self publicist that I am, I’m not going to miss out on some free publicity and so I’ll be there, hopefully. It means I have a good reason to go there with a van full of stuff.

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Thursday 24th February 2011 – Happy Birthday to me!

Although you wouldn’t think so. I’ve had one of those days.

Despite my marathon drive in the blizzard yesterday evening, I didn’t have much time to lie about and recover. There was work to do.
First thing was to go shopping (as if we haven’t done enough) Brico and IKEA at Zaventem were the destinations today and it’s another occasion where we saw the marvellous Belgium customer service in operation.

And on the way back, I fell into a police barrage and ended up being fined €50 for not wearing a seat belt. The policemen wished me a happy birthday but I could ell have done without all of that.

We came home to find that the expensive halogen oven hob that I liked so very much has ceased to function, which is a disaster. Luckily, Terry is here and he can give it his full attention.

But at least there is home-made ginger cake for my birthday. Liz defied Global Warming by lighting all the candles and when I tried to blow them out I was driven back by the heat.

I’m glad that today is now over anyway – it’s not been my best day today has it?

Wednesday 23rd February 2011 – We are back in Brussels again

Liz, yours truly, and also Caliburn who is much better and thanks everyone for the best wishes he was sent.

So yesterday I went back to my farm in the Ka (which I got to like much more than I did the first day I drove it) in order to hunt down some paperwork. It didn’t take me long to break in and once there I did some chilling out. Quite literally as it happened as the temperature was a mere 5.6°C in my attic. While we were away the temperature there had dropped to as low as -0.6°C which is hardly surprising as the temperature outside had dropped as far as -12.4°C on one occasion.

We then headed off to Riom for shopping and it was there that the garage rang to say that we could pick up Caliburn and so once we had sorted ourselves out we set off for here. On the way home the gorgeous sunny day slowly descended into a grey miserable wet evening and by the time we were climbing into the Ardennes at the back of Chalons sur Marne it was snowing heavily. Crossing over the Ardennes into Belgium was fraught, having to pick our way around abandoned lorries, sliding around roundabouts on the handbrake and so on. Poor Liz went about 50 miles with her eyes closed. It was not a journey that I would particularly like to do again unless I have to.

03:00 when we arrived back in Brussels after all of this, and Terry was waiting by the window for us. He’d heard about the weather and was rather anxious for our well-being which was quite nice of him.

But now, I’m off to bed to make up for what I’ve missed out on. I’m exhausted.

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Tuesday 22nd February 2011 – Poor Caliburn

Caliburn is not very well at the moment and is currently at the menders awaiting spare parts. And so Liz and I are still here and Terry is still there.

We started the morning by a quick breakfast and a quick search for stuff that we needed to take back to Brussels, and then we had to shoot off to Marcillat to record Radio Programme Number 1. But Caliburn was coughing and smoking a little too much and was not in the best of health so it was more of a leisurely drive.

After that, it was round to my place and to unload him of all the things that he had brought down from Brussels. While we were there, Radio Arverne asked us to come a little earlier to record the programmes for them – this meant dropping everything and shooting off to Gerzat. But Caliburn was a little worse by this time. Stopping for fuel for the return journey at the Carrefour just outside Riom and it was clear that we would be struggling to make anywhere, never mind Brussels, so it was off to the mender’s on the outskirts of Riom.

What is happening is that there’s a valve in the emissions circuit that controls the air intake and exhaust, and it has stuck closed. There’s insufficient air reaching the combustion chambers and so Caliburn is running far too rich and that is the reason for the unburnt fuel and sooty smoke. A new valve has been ordered and hopefully will arrive tomorrow. At the same time, Caliburn can have his (overdue) service and hopefully he’ll be feeling much better and normal service will resume.

Meantime, we have a hired Ford Ka to bring us back to here (it was cheaper than a taxi and of course there is no public transport around here since the railway line closed down 2 years ago) and that will give us a chance to do those things that we were going to do.

I was planning to go back to my house and find some papers that I need but it seems that I have .. errr … left the keys to my house on Caliburn’s keyring which is of course with Caliburn at the menders.

D’ohhhh!

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Monday 21st February 2011 – Now talk about a change …

… here I am sitting in the Auvergne. But not in my little attic but in front of a rip-roaring fire at Terry and Liz’s.

This morning, having fuelled up Caliburn, we went to load him up with another pile of stuff and to load up the trailer to with stuff to take back here. But Caliburn is a little poorly right now – the pump-timing has slipped out one notch so he’s not pulling as well as he might – and in any case with the new plan which involves throwing away most of the stuff in the garage, there didn’t seem to be much point in dragging a quarter-full trailer 750 kilometres to here and then dragging an empty one 750 kilometres back.

Without the trailer, Caliburn bounced along quite happily. Leaving Brussels at about 09:40 and stopping for lunch and for afternoon coffee, we were back here (through the snow in the Ardennes and the rain from Auxerre southwards) by 19:45.

There are some beautiful spots along the old road south of Auxerre so I took a little time out to show Liz some of the scenery.

Clamecy is a particularly beautiful little town and one of these days I’ll spend some time there to have a really good look around. In the meantime though, I shall just tantalise you by letting you look at the town in Quebec, Canada, with which Clamecy is twinned. My imagination is boggling – I dunno about yours.

Back here at Liz’s, it’s really cold and in a stone house that has been empty and unheated for a month in midwinter, it’s even cold inside. But with a huge blaze going it’s quickly warming up. Mind you, after driving all this way it won’t be long before I’ll be climbing the little wooden hill to Bedfordshire.

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Sunday 20th February 2011 – And today was Sunday.

And so, we …. errr … worked.

Liz finished painting the woodwork in the toilet while Terry and I went a-breaking and entering. Those of you with long memories will recall that I lost the keys to the apartment while I was at an OUSA meeting at Wyboston in 2008 and although I cobbled together a spare set of keys, there was no garage key to be found.

So this morning we drilled it all out and replaced the lock and then sorted out the stuff in there. A third of it went into Caliburn – all my tools and so on – another third I’m undecided about, and the remainder is destined straight away for the tip without any further discussion. I cannot think why I reckoned, even in my befuddled state, that I needed three double beds for in here. There’s tons of stuff like that which is better off down in the dechetterie.

Mind you, I found all my skiing gear and I washed my ski suits. I quite fancy going on the piste some time in the future but I reckon that I’ve missed my chance for this year. However Banff in British Columbia looks quite exciting – I wouldn’t mind going on the piste over there. I have to admit that I’m disappointed in the facilities down the road at Super Besse. There’s never usually any snow and when there is, there is a low hanging cloud that obscures the runs and you can’t ski there anyway. No wonder everyone is piste off.

There is a reason for our haste today. On Tuesday we need to record our radio programmes in Marcillat and Gerzat but we are a long way away from finishing here. So we have decided that Liz and I will take Caliburn and the big trailer, duly loaded, down to the Auvergne tomorrow, record our programmes on Tuesday and then unload Caliburn and the trailer, and then come back here on Wednesday to carry on. That will mean that half of the stuff will have gone and that will save a trip or two – we may as well combine what we can.

With the radio programmes, it meant that I had to dash off not one but two scripts – firstly one on education for Radio Arverne and then rework the script on Building Regulations for Radio Tartasse. And so I’ve been a busy little bee and it isn’t long since I finished.

And so with all of the travelling that I need to be doing over the next few days, I’m heading for the hills earlier than usual.

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EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality